


unraveled, undone

by sejutaejo



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Callie POV, F/F, Grey's Anatomy specialties but make them Kingdoms, Hurt/Comfort, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:59:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29160039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sejutaejo/pseuds/sejutaejo
Summary: “Tell me your name,” I ask her.“Do you really want to know?” she asks me back shortly. “If I tell you my name, then you would be obligated to give me yours. Wouldn’t you rather we become passing strangers in the night?”---or:Callie was supposed to keep the peace in her court. When another kingdom attacks, she isn't impressed... yet.
Relationships: Arizona Robbins/Callie Torres
Comments: 14
Kudos: 29





	1. i. the queen of sand

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to try something out with First Person POVs and this seemed like a good story to experiment it on, and I kinda think it went okay. This AU is literally just surgical specialties but make them Royal Courts. General Surgery is the High Court of Courts since the iconic Chiefs were general surgeons.

I rule the Court of Orthos.

Orthos is a land of desert and sky. The poets call our land merciless, the travelers think it is torment, but, of course, they are all foreigners who have not been welcomed by the sand dunes. Greenery here is a luxury bought by chance, and the rare pond of freshwater is a power worth heavy gold in trade. 

My people know the language of the sand dunes. They look at soft desert mounds and see art of a thousand years. They see gold in grains of sand, beauty in strong sandstorms, and though the sun may beat on our backs like physical pain, then it has only been accepted as simple truth in the kingdom.

In grief, at my mother’s death, my father passed me the crown and the throne of the Court when I was barely a grown woman. He watched as the high priests painted branching patterns on my back, the royal marks that would follow my rulership just as my father’s marks had followed his. He saw my younger sister place the silver jewels of a hundred generations of House Torres atop my head, although it didn’t quite fit me back then as a child. When I was frightened, he held my gaze as I sat on the throne, his eyes reassuring and present and the strength I knew I had to become.

He bowed to my name together with the witnesses of my coronation, though he didn’t have to. My father smiled upon me proudly, the last of his smiles, as I took on my regal seat. After my coronation, I watched him retreat to the garden of bones where my mother and noble ancestors lay in eternal sleep.

Although he lived for more years after that, the father I knew never returned to me. My sister, who was too young, could not give me wise words to rule a kingdom. The years raised me into a queen, and, in due time, I learned to rule my sea of sand scorching under the Southern sun.

Today, the sun’s rays filter through the sheer pink curtains and bathe my quarters in red light. My sister Aria sits in front of me, lazily draping her legs over the velvet cushions. She steals grapes from the bowl prepared for my midday meal and pops one delicately into her mouth. The rings on her fingers glint even in the dim light, and the diaphanous robes she wore move airily with her arms, a picture of regal decadence.

“Entertain me, sister.” She moans in boredom, though she does it elegantly the way only princesses in line for the throne know how. 

Our childhood was spent brawling against the other, pettily trying to win the favors of our mother and father. I suspect that, if the past was written differently, we would still remain at odds over the smallest things, a trivial rivalry between siblings who do not have much to worry about. But, now, I am Queen, and she is the Princess of the Court. The only company that kept us sane was each other.

If the court advisors saw her now, they would have admonished her for impropriety, but I do not mind Aria’s bold intrusions into my day. She is a reminder of the freedom I used to have before I was given the throne. She is someone who speaks to me as a person, not as a monarch. “Tell me the most disreputable stories you’ve heard in court.”

“I could, but you’ve repeated time and again that all pale in comparison to Mark Sloan’s new ‘adventures’. It would not matter if our Court had a spurt of women bearing children in a year, you would still ask me of Sloan.” I reply carelessly. ”I doubt you’d even care if I starred in my own scandal one day.”

“Callie, you’re too busy to star in a scandal. You’re the least entertaining queen of a court.” She grins, but her eyes daze off to the ceiling as she tries to recall a memory, “The greatest scandal you ever starred in was when the palace maids saw you kiss that blonde merchant-woman from Kardia.”

I reminisce the days back when sharing silly kisses with Erica Hahn had been the greatest troubles in my life. “They were at it for weeks.” I laugh. My advisors had hounded me endlessly when they first heard of the whispers. They told me to consider my future heir. Nevertheless, I kept on kissing more Ericas, merchantlings and commonfolk, until responsibility itself kept me occupied for whole days.

“Yes! And they didn’t even know who the woman was, just that she had been blonde and a merchant.” Aria leans into me secretively, intent on keeping the merchant-woman’s true identity a secret from prying ears, eager to continue our little game with our own Court. “I even heard that word of this reached the Court of Paedia.” She whispers with a grin. “They thought you kissed a relative of Lord Daniel Robbins.”

“Oh, truly?” I muse. “No wonder Paedia declined our invitation for my birthday feast three years ago.” I joke, even when I knew the only reason they declined the invitation was that Lord Robbins’ heir and only son, Timothy, had died in a hunt that year. I received word last year that Lord Robbins had resigned from lordship and took on the cloak of the Kingsguard. No one knew the identity of the current Lord of Paedia. 

At that moment, a knock sounded from my doors. The voice of a young boy called out from the other side of the wood. “A letter for you, Lady Calliope. From the House Chang.”

I allow the messenger boy entry, and he silently extends me the scroll with the seal of House Chang, one of the bannerman Houses for House Torres situated by the border between Orthos and Paedia. I accept it and thank him before he leaves.

As soon as the doors are shut, Aria moves with her hands clasped in front of her. “Oh, please, may I read the letter, dear sister? Please?” She gives me a saccharine smile and pleading eyes that I only laugh at.

“You don’t even care for House Chang. Besides, these are only likely to be crops and stocks reports.” I try to wave her away, but Aria stands firm.

“I’ll still read it. The sun today has evaporated all the fun out of the court. I need entertainment, sister.”

I pretend to consider, but I would have given the letter to Aria anyway. My eyes are tired of reading numbers and strict letters, and having Aria read it to me would keep her here longer. “Fine. And if you really are bored, then memorize the letter and report it to me yourself, with all the right numbers.” I challenge her lightly, but she’s already taken the scroll.

While Aria settles on the cushions with the letter in her hands, my eyes wander to the sand dunes outside. They are the sight I wake up to every morning, the view I watch in the quiet hours. I tire of them, as I do all my favorite things. But they are here be it day, night or twilight. The desert is here in a deceiving sea of gold, stretching endlessly to the horizon.

I am broken from my reverie by Aria’s gasp of horror. I look at her in surprise and in panic, but her eyes remain on the letter, moving back and forth through the lines. “Aria?” I ask, already worrying. “What is it?”

She reads to me a part of the letter. “ _ I fear that my daughter, Leigh, has been stolen from me by Paedian soldiers. And, if the sightings were true, I fear that my resources and people are being stolen as well.”  _ Aria looks up to me with eyes searching for reassurance only a Queen can give. But I cannot give her the reassurance she’s looking for.

“Paedia is attacking Orthos?” I ask her instead, begging her to say that I’ve misheard her words. But her head nods with finality, a confirmation I never wanted.

* * *

The day after I received the letter from Lord Chang, I immediately wrote to Paedia. I needed to know their true intentions, to hope that this was all a misunderstanding. Paedia had never rebelled against the peace of the Courts before, but for three years they’ve been silently grieving for their lost Prince. Their Court had been in a mourning so deep that I didn’t know what had awoken with them.

The first reply from Paedia arrived a moon after I sent my letter. Their seal, a peach-colored wax with the insignia of three birds in flight, seemed to glow brightly in my trepidation to receive their response. 

The first letter admitted to their role in the capture of Lady Leigh Chang and ninety-five other people of the House Chang. However, they firmly refused to return the captives. Nothing was written about the captives’ conditions, whether they were hurt or taken care of or executed.

After a gathering with my advisors, I wrote them another letter that threatened to forbid their people from trading Orthos wine. Our wine was the most popular delicacy in the kingdoms, a sign of wealth and the drink of kings. The royal advisors predicted that removing Orthos wine from their trade would quickly empty their coffers. My Council had been confident that they would return the captives this time. But, again, they refused.

The Council continued to discuss and argue meaninglessly. They suggested blocking off all borders, to deny Paedia trade routes from Orthos, to threaten and hint and scheme and plot. I soon grew tired of their talking. Paedia was known to have the greatest army in the kingdoms. Passive intimidation wouldn’t work on them.

When I hinted at taking the offensive, the Orthos Council and the royal advisors smiled and applauded, and they didn’t even bother to hide that they were patronizing me. They went back to calculating numbers as if gold and silver pieces could bring back our stolen people, as if I’d never spoken at all. 

Beyond frazzled at my council, I walked out of the gathering in quick steps. Aria followed closely behind, worried and waiting to see what I would do next. In those seconds, I didn’t feel like myself. Instead, I felt like I had been possessed by the Orthos crown. A momentary burst of strength flowed inside my veins, urging me to do something bold and powerful. That day, I wrote to Paedia an invitation of war.

Of course, the royal advisors scolded me even as I sat on my royal seat. But I’ve grown too used to all the rules I had to follow. In the end, I was the woman sitting on the throne, I was the only hand who can sign the final message.

Aria is the one who hands me Paedia’s reply to my war. For the first time, she gives me a seal that she hasn’t broken first. The crack of wax as I break it echoes inside me, though I do not feel afraid nor eager to know what’s inside. I only feel acceptance.

I read it and I feel the surprise Aria must have felt when she first read Lord Chang’s letter all those weeks ago. Aria calls to me this time, the worry in her voice evident. “What does it say, Callie?”

“They don’t want war.” I echo as I hand her the letter. Aria lets out a breath she’d been holding. “They invited me to the High Court of Courts in the capital. To confer in the eyes of the Princess Meredith and the Crown.” I only now notice the strange rhythm in my chest, and it takes me moments to realize that it was my heart beating rapidly.

“What does this mean?”

I had no idea. When I sent the last letter to Paedia, I expected them to agree. They’ve stolen my people, refused to return them, and weren’t uneased by threats of a trade ban. Now, they wished to see me in Genus in front of the High Court, to engage in a diplomatic discussion which the Crown could mediate. Paedia is the last kingdom to be afraid of battle. But here is proof of Paedia refusing war, right in my sister’s hands. 

“I don’t know,” I say, the most honest I’ve been since I wrote my first letter.

“They say that after Daniel Robbins left, a Lady Robbins replaced his seat on the Paedian throne.”

“A Lady Robbins?” It’s the first I heard of such a rumor. I try to remember if the House of Robbins had a woman in their line, but I cannot think of anyone. Whenever there was a gathering of the courts, it was always Lord Daniel Robbins and his heir, Timothy, who represented Paedia. They bring nobody else.

“Yes. Some say that she grew outside their Court with the late Lord Timothy’s mother.” Aria continues. “If she is inexperienced as a ruler—“

“That remains an  _ ‘if’,  _ Aria.” I cut her off. “Paedia has been quiet for too long a time now. We know nothing of them. And their first move in three years is to attack us. That should say enough.”

Aria sets down the letter and looks me in the eye. “I know you’re as relieved as I am, Callie, even if you’d been the one to extend the invitation of war.” I hear her question before she asks it. “Will you go?”

“I will,” my voice sounds stronger than I felt. I remember my father and wonder if this is how he would feel were it him that received the letters. I wonder if the kings of old understood me now, and if they could forgive the fear I felt and the deception of momentary strength I showed.

This was the first time I felt threatened by another Court, and though I wanted to act aggressively rather than wait for all the coins to fall into place, I still did not want my people to experience war. We have been in peace for three decades. It will not be broken in my rule.

By the next day’s first light, I’d already set off to the capital with my company. I left Aria to rule in my stead. Before I left, she’d given me a long hug in front of the entire assembly, even though we’ve been taught not to. The banners of House Torres shined brightly that day. Our red cloth, with the insignia of an elephant’s tusks stitched in silver threads, led the way across the golden sea of sand.

* * *

After days of travel, I finally set my eyes on the spires of the capital.

Horns blow a triumphant melody at our arrival in the city gates. From the Southern Gate, the capital soldiers lead us up a wide cobbled path heading towards the High Court on the hill. I gaze out to see the people of Genus and their stone homes. Their eyes look back at me with awe. I wonder how we look to them, with my company dressed in sheer gold and red Orthos silk and light leather over our bodies. I wonder how our red banners shine in their light, a splash of color among the black and grey flags of the High Court.

Princess Meredith waits for us outside the entrance to her Keep. There are three Kingsguards behind her, knights whose sole duty is to protect the royal family. I note that Lord Robbins wasn’t there.

As soon as my company stops their march, the servants beside her cater to our horses and supplies. Most of my men are being led away to the East side of the castle, but my personal guards stay with me and the first-born princess.

“Welcome to the Capital, Lady Calliope.”, she gives me a small bow.

I bow back. Behind me, my guards have as well. “Princess Meredith, Princess of the Courts.”

When the both of us straighten, the formalities and courtesies finally melt away. Slowly the ends of Meredith’s lips curl into a grin, and her eyes twinkle in suppressed mirth. My own smile widens. “I haven’t seen you in so long.” She tells me.

“Only because you’ve been so busy ruling over the kingdoms,” I reply. Meredith may be a princess in title, but, with her mother, Ellis, indisposed because of an illness in memory, she was left to lead the High Court. From all the daunting things that have happened recently, I am glad that Meredith is the one to oversee the discussions.

“And you only keep on making me busy. A war, Callie? You wanted to go to war?”, Meredith, her Kingsguards, my guards, and I have taken another path towards the East Wing of the Grey’s Keep. Here, tall arches and graceful motifs line the hallways. There are paintings on the ceiling that depict moments in history. We even pass a closed garden designed so differently from the open spaces of the Court of Orthos.

I glare at Meredith, but she only takes it in stride. “They stole Lord Chang’s daughter. They stole ninety-five of my people!”

Meredith only shakes her head, remaining as impartial as she is bound to be. “They are already here, you know. In the castle.” That did not surprise me. Paedia was closer to the capital than Orthos. I assume they must have arrived a week earlier at the most. “If they really are as monstrous as you say they are, then I should advise you to watch your words, lest you invoke their monstrosity even before I could attempt to reconcile your disputes on the throne of the High Court.”

“And what reason do I have to be afraid of them?” I decidedly ignore that it was widely known that Paedia held the greatest army in all the kingdoms. My boldness a few weeks past seems to stick to me even here in the capital. “I would be afraid if it was my court that had slighted them, but as I see it, Meredith, they are the ones who stole from me.”

She does not reply to that, but I can see a twinkle in her eyes. Whatever information she gathered from the Paedian party had Meredith clearly enjoying herself, though, given Meredith’s uncanny humor, it was hard to discern whether that was a good sign or more troubling plights.

Finally, we arrive in the quarters of the palace prepared for my company. Orthos soldiers wearing leather armor and sheer golden silk over their shoulders already stand guard by the small gate of our temporary living quarters. All around me, a mix of my household staff and the royal staff are finishing preparations.

Meredith leads me deeper inside and through a secluded corridor furthest from the entrance. At the end of the corridor is a large arched door. Beside the door are two servants wearing Grey colors, one of them held a flagon so intricately designed on her hands. I do not peer into the container, but the aroma reveals to me its contents nevertheless.

“Orthos wine, Mer? I drink enough Orthos wine at home.”

“I thought a taste of home would calm you before the hearing.”

“What would calm me is that Lady Leigh and the rest of my people be returned to my Court.”

Meredith only rolls her eyes, and it confuses me further.

“Mer! What is it that you find laughable here?”

“You will know what I find funny when the hearing starts, Callie. Honestly, I am so relieved this didn’t reach war because it would have been the most pointless war in our history.” With that, Meredith smiled, turned, and left me standing in front of my room, still unsure of what Meredith meant.

* * *

I barely slept that night.

When I first laid down, I was thinking of Meredith’s strange reactions. I’ve known Mer for a long time. Since I was crowned a Court Queen early in my youth and she was a Princess of the High Court, we were the only two of the same age during feasts and gatherings. It made us childhood friends. But I could never figure her secret smiles. They were always so full of meaning, yet at the same time completely hidden and secretive. I wish her half-sister Lexie were here. She could have told me each one of Meredith’s thoughts. But Lexie had been fostered by the Shepherds and their glass castles years ago.

I turn on my side, thinking about the boldness of my declaration of war. It was a naïve move, the more I thought about it. And the more I thought about it, the more I squirmed in my bed. That was something the younger Callie would have done, someone who didn’t care for the consequences and only wanted everything to be over with, someone who once tried to run away from home.

I turn again, and the choirs in my head keep me awake singing to me terrible tunes.

__

When I realize I could no longer lay and hope for sleep, I rise from my bed and slip on decent red silks for a midnight stroll. Here, in a foreign court, and with enemies sleeping on the other side of the castle no less, I take extra caution and invite two of my guards to follow. They didn’t wear the heavier armors prepared for more formal occasions and they’ve traded Orthos spears for common swords, but I did not need a retinue tonight. The swords were enough for protection.

I trace my steps back to where I saw the paintings on the ceiling. Finally, I enter a spacious empty chamber with six pillars supporting both sides. My eyes trace the figures painted above me, human postures immortalized by oil in ambient pictures. The two guards following me stand by the entrance to the chamber, giving me the privacy I wanted from this walk.

Just as I am about to step further into the chamber, I notice a lonely person standing still on the center of the floor with her head tilted up and lost in the pictures above her. I try calling for her, but at that moment, clouds parted in the sky and the entire chamber was suddenly showered in luminous silver. She was immediately drenched in moonlight. Her white dress made her gleam like something unearthly, and she looked ethereal.

Without meaning to, I take a step closer, and my footfall echoes over the entire chamber, bouncing off the walls and only growing louder at its emptiness. Although I freeze at my blunder, the woman doesn’t jump. She speaks to me without moving her eyes from the ceiling like she had been waiting for me all along. “If you begin from the paintings on that spot and circle all the way towards the center, you’ll see every conquest that led to the founding of the High Court.”

I looked up again and, sure enough, the painting above me was the birth of King Alfred, who would soon unite all the kingdoms into a High Court of Courts.

I admit that she fascinates me, and the way she appeared like a lone folkloric maiden plays unendingly in my head. But we are in Genus, and here, everyone knew to bring companions when night falls. “How do I know that you won’t stab me while I’m busy studying the paintings?”

“Because I’m alone. And I’m wearing nothing but a nightgown.” She finally looks at me and I almost falter at the brilliance of her blue eyes. They have the ability to devour, and I find myself wanting to fall. “I should be the one worried about your guards. They could dishonor me.”

“Then you shouldn’t have come alone,” I reply.

“They always tell me the same.” She glances outside the windows to the direction of the place ‘they’ were. “And I keep ignoring them anyway. But, sometimes, I wish I had listened.” 

I think of the opposite. Her words make me remember my advisors and how they made me sacrifice much to rule Orthos. I am grateful for them, for raising me inside the Court, but, sometimes, I wish I hadn’t listened to everything they said.

We are quiet once more, simply looking at each other with caution. The woman is the one to break the silence again. “If you are so worried that I hide a knife, then I could always strip off my clothes.” She began to tug the sleeves of her nightgown, and the creamy expanse of her shoulders was for a moment, exposed to my view before I begrudgingly insisted she stop.

“You shouldn’t do that.”

“Shouldn’t?”

“You don’t have to do that.” I correct myself. But, she already has a smile on her lips.

“You know,” she says. “For a kingdom whose main delicacy is alcohol, you are kind of a prude.” But she smiles as she says this, and I don’t feel angry for it.

“You know who I am?”

“I don’t know your name. But I know where you’re from. Those could only be Orthos silk, no other cloth is as colorful.” She gestures to my own dress. I’m only wearing a simple frock, so it surprises me that she had guessed the make of the silk. It is not much, but I am impressed. It is so easy to be impressed around her.

“Tell me your name,” I ask her.

“Do you really want to know?” she asks me back shortly. “If I tell you my name, then you would be obligated to give me yours. Wouldn’t you rather we become passing strangers in the night?”

I nod. I remind myself that I do not know this woman, no matter how captivating she is, and there are only a few things worth the information of my name. “Then tell me where you’re from. You know mine.”

She smiles again, a sly one this time. It is a cruel smile in that it makes my heart race. “But I didn’t ask you for it. I only guessed. And, just now, you told me I was right.” She begins to move towards me, and I am compelled to move towards her too. “If you want to know where I come from, then you’ll have to guess it too.”

Now, we are standing an arm’s length apart. Above us is the picture of King Alfred and the Queen Eleanor in their marriage. High Queen Eleanor’s arm is raised in a gesture so graceful as it was still. The woman in front of me looks like Queen Eleanor, with her small frame, blonde hair, and joyful smile.

“You are of the castle Grey.” I say. Was she a cousin of Meredith’s? There have been so many scandals in the courts that a bastard daughter of the High Queen’s brother or sister or some would hardly even matter anymore.

But she only laughs, the sound playful. “If you say I am a Grey, then tonight I will be.”

“Are you not a Grey?”

“It wouldn’t matter tomorrow if I was not, would it?”

She closes the distance between us, slowly and carefully walking into my space. Her lips are slightly parted, and there is a question in her eyes. Like a strike of lightning, I suddenly understood what it was that she was asking from me. The boldness that hasn’t left me rears to the front of my mind, and I answer her by closing my eyes, inviting her to lead.

I’ve been kissed before, and I’ve been touched, but only after courting. I am close friends with Mark Sloan who frequented brothels, but I’ve never been one to invite strangers into my bed. It was not unsanctioned in Orthos to fornicate with different people every week. It was simply that I’ve never developed a taste for one-night trysts.

But, at the touch of her lips against mine, I finally understand the appeal and exhilaration that Mark only ever understood. The abruptness of it all. The terror of being found kissing with a stranger under the roof of the High Queen. A stranger who hid secret stories and unknown consequences. A one-night romance that could be the prelude to war. It was the momentary thrill of flight before falling, the anticipation found within the infinitesimal seconds of opening a buried chest, not knowing what was inside.

Her lips part away all too soon, and when I open my eyes, her blue ones only look at me happily, obviously pleased that she had kissed me.

“I’d invite you to my own bed…” she beams, and I blush at her bluntness. “…but we agreed to be strangers for the night. I don’t see any brothels nearby, not if you want to walk all the way to the center of the city right now. And, I'd offer to fuck you on the floor where we stand, but I doubt your guards would appreciate hearing you cry out.”

By the time she’s ended, I feel like something in me has been opened, something that has begged to be opened ever since I wrote for war. “We could simply kiss until the sun comes out.”

“We could, but I’m afraid I don’t have enough ways to kiss your lips until morning without having to kiss somewhere else.” I blush when she dips her eyes.

Despite the warmth in my cheeks, I manage to grin back teasingly. “Then, what are we to do?”

“We don’t do anything.” Her words disappoint me, but I understand her meaning. “Alas, we’ve met in the most inopportune of places. And I fear that if I were to spend another minute with you, then come morning we’d be walking back to our rooms in torn garments.”

I feel her about to move away, so I grab her wrist, hoping that I could buy us seconds with this small gesture. The touch of her skin on mine electrifies me more than the kiss we shared. It makes me want to reach for her hand, to entwine my fingers with hers until our palms are pressed together and I could feel every inch of her skin. Her eyes are wide and happy, and they tell me that she wants the same too. But she has more control than I ever did, and I allow her arm to break away.

“Is this good-bye?”

“It isn’t,” she says this even as she takes one step away from me. “Not if you meet me at the Curious Shanty in the city tomorrow morning.”

She is walking away, but I still smile at her. The Curious Shanty was a rest house in Genus run by a merchant with Plastic origins. It was no brothel, but it was a favorite spot to take secret lovers for the night.

The words are spoken before I even thought of them. “I could spend tomorrow and forever with you…” I think of the way she had come to me like a dream, of how, with her, I am a supplicant and she the monarch. I imagine her in the crown and robes of the First High Queen, and I am pleasantly surprised that they fit her well. “...Eleanor,” I call her without meaning to, and I am immediately embarrassed, but the happy surprise on her face keeps me from running off.

“Eleanor?”

“You look like the First High Queen Eleanor.” I try to explain. She looks back at the paintings above us, revisiting all depictions of Eleanor, before looking back at me and smiling in amusement.

“I guess so. I am her descendant, in a sense. But not in the way you think.” I beam at her. Maybe she really was a bastard Grey, living in the palace by the abundant grace of Princess Meredith. “If I am Eleanor, then you are Cassie Collins.”

“Cassie Collins?”

“Yes, High Queen Eleanor’s Lady’s maid who she took to her bed in the lonely nights.”

Of course, that was only a historical assumption. But it fills me with lust all the same.

With a final smirk towards my direction, the stranger-woman leaves me alone in the chamber. Yet, even in her absence, my cheeks remain warm, my smile remains fixed. The high feeling of giddiness at tonight’s encounter doesn’t leave me until I return to my own quarters and tuck myself under the sheets, and even then, my thoughts still drift to her.

She is smiling behind my eyes, inside my head, and no other dream manages to replace her. I don’t know who she is, nor what she means, nor what she could mean for me. Yet, I need to see her again. The desire resonates in me. It echoes in the caverns inside my heart, and I feel myself letting go of the consequences just as I fall asleep.

In my dreams, she is there, and she is standing on a field of wildflowers. I reach for her, and our hands touch under the freedom of the blue sky, as freeing and blue as her eyes. 


	2. ii. the white rabbit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re awake,” she whispers quietly, intimately. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I’m sorry.”
> 
> “Don’t be,” I smile sleepily. “I wish I had more days where you are the sight I wake up to.” 
> 
> I intended my words to be flirtatious, but they ring a truth that I’ve long desired. It is irrational and reckless, but I’ve fallen for her.
> 
> “I wish for that too,” she says, and the fond smile that forms on her lips as she says it makes me think that she has fallen for me too.  
>    
> \---
> 
> or: _Elsa from Frozen would definitely smack Callie in the head for falling in love with a pretty girl she just met._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated M for sexual content.

When all was still right with the world, when my heart had fit in my chest, and when my every breath had filled my lungs, my father told me stories.

One of them was of a girl and a white rabbit. The girl, he told me, was idling by a garden when the rabbit carrying a timepiece hopped in front of her, glanced at her once, and then hopped away to the bushes. The girl, imbued with curiosity at the odd sight, followed the white rabbit down its rabbit hole. Then, she fell and fell and fell down the hole until she landed on a strange land with cake that could make her shrink and caterpillars who smoked the alphabet. Far away from home, alone, and surrounded by strangers on all sides.

I knew that the girl had followed the rabbit out of curiosity, but I have never truly understood why. It was one of those stories that I simply couldn’t imagine myself being in. There was no white rabbit in the world that could make me abandon the life I was living.

And, yet, a stranger had kissed me last night, and I had woken up to the thought of seeing her again. Now, I understand why the girl had jumped into the rabbit hole. It wasn’t just simple curiosity that led her to fall so long. It was a need, a terrible aching need to _know_.

I found my white rabbit, and I would follow her wherever she leads me.

I awakened to the cries of seagulls outside. It is an unfamiliar sound, and it takes me seconds to register that I was in Genus and not inside my chambers in Orthos. Here, the morning sky is a blossoming purple just bright enough to view the sea’s horizon in the distance. I take a few private seconds to myself to admire the azure scenery. The ocean shines like a mass of diamonds, glittering and sparkling in waves. It is different from the blanket of gold in Orthos. It is a cool scene that is opposite the heat that bounced off the sand dunes outside my palace, and I do not feel welcomed by it. For the first time, I truly feel far from home.

Below the castle, the city is also rousing from its sleep. If I listen closely, I can hear the sounds of brooms sweeping across stone and a few indistinct conversations rising up in the air. 

No doubt, some of the members of my Court are long awake by now. Although I do not know where the kitchen in the East Wing is, I can much more sense rather than smell the aroma of the early morning meal being prepared by the castle cooks. I expect that the cleaning staff was already working around our Court’s living quarters. My Lady’s maid and the other attendants are likely to be at the kitchen plating the meals. Most of the guards would still be asleep. And I do not think there is anyone standing outside my room.

Good, I would have to act quickly.

If I want to meet with the stranger ‘Eleanor’ this morning, then I have to sneak away from the Court. Not all of the royal advisors followed me here to Genus—of course, some had to stay and pester Aria who was ruling Orthos in my stead—but I know they are watching me, surveying my every move. They are still asleep this early in the morning, but I am not foolish enough to think that they did not plant spies among my attendants and guards. Having guards follow me to the center of the city was the same as inviting the old crones in the Council to spectate my dallying with a nameless woman. And, I would prefer that nobody see the things I do to her today.

I rummage through my wardrobe and settle for the simpler clothes I brought with me. There was no point in looking luxurious when traveling to the heart of the city. Luckily, I find a dull brown cloak that I could wear until I’m deep enough in the streets. It is far from the blood red color I normally wear, and I hope it is enough to conceal me. I also pull out a pouch and drop silver and gold pieces into it. After all, I would soon be walking along merchant shops, and coins are the greatest weapon against tradesmen.

As I am tying the pouch around my waist, I suddenly remember the woman’s words to me last night. _“I should be the one worried about your guards.”_ Wherever I roamed, the guards were always an extension of my identity. I am a Court Queen, and the spears and shields protecting my life were always carried by soldiers in leather armor. Today, I wouldn’t be traveling as Queen, but as a woman, and the woman traveled alone and unprotected.

In my father’s story, the girl had followed the white rabbit unarmed and vulnerable, but I would jump into the rabbit hole prepared. There is a dagger on the bottom of the biggest chest I brought from Orthos. I take it out from its sheath, and it immediately gleams in the light. I do not dare touch its edge, afraid and too sure that it would cut my skin even at the lightest touch. My eyes stare back at me on the blade’s surface, a pair of burnt umbers against its steel. I plant the dagger back on its leather sheath and tuck it on my hip. The capital is not Orthos, and I will meet it armed.

My suspicion was right, there is no one outside my doors when I exit the room. Trying not to draw attention to myself, I sneak around the palace, trying to find my Lady’s maid, Colleen. I find her walking in a hallway, and I am relieved that I didn’t have to scour the entire Wing searching for her. She is carrying a basket of lemons that would doubtlessly find itself in our meal. She must be heading for the kitchen.

Only now do I realize how much the nobles underestimate our household. We may own the castles and palaces, but it is the attendants who know the halls like the backs of their hands. We had just arrived yesterday, yet Colleen acts like she has been serving in the Grey’s Keep all her life. With this realization comes another: I could ask Colleen the best way out of this castle without being seen.

I hide behind a corner and wait for her. When she passes me, I grab for her arm. Colleen shrieks and I expected her to drop the lemons, but though she is surprised, the basket is still firmly in her arms.

“Hush, Colleen! It is only me,” I turn her towards me and she relaxes instantly at the sight of my face. I drag the both of us deeper into the secluded hallway where I’m sure we wouldn’t be seen nor heard.

“Oh, m’lady, you gave me such a fright,” if she wasn’t holding a basket, I am sure Colleen would have rested a hand against her chest. She notices my get-up and quirks her brow in question. “M’lady, are you going somewhere this early in the day?”

“Yes,” I nod and Colleen doesn’t ask more of it. I have her loyalty, and she does not need me to explain for her to follow. “I need you to do something for me. I don’t want the rest of the Court to know I have left. Do not permit anyone to enter my room, not even Meredith. The guards can keep their post outside of my chambers, but I need them to leave later tonight when I… _sneak_ back in.”

“I will tell them you are feeling ill for tomorrow’s hearing, m’lady,” says Colleen and I nod.

“And, Colleen, there is one other thing,” Colleen has been my Lady’s maid for years now. She was only second to Aria in the list of people in Orthos I could say anything to, which says a lot of the people in Orthos. Nevertheless, I feel embarrassed that I have to ask her for this.

“Yes, m’lady?” she waits for me to continue, and I had to push the words out.

“Can you lead me to a way out of the castle?” I feel like a child who needed to be accompanied, not a rebellious Queen about to involve herself in a secret affair. I have visited this castle ever since I was a child, and yet the only exits I know are the grand doors of the castle gates.

Colleen simply smiles at me. “Of course, m’lady. I just came from the back exit to the marketplace. We can go through there. The watch wasn’t anywhere near when I first passed, but if the royal guards ask, I’ll tell them you’re a vendor who helped me find my way back.”

I am grateful for her. She immediately offers to show me the way, but stops when I shake my head. “You should go ahead and bring those to the kitchen,” I gesture to the lemons.

Colleen bows before she leaves, and when she came back, we made our way through a small door at the back of the castle. I pull my hood up when I see a Genus guard walk towards us, and when he asks me if I was part of the Orthos household, Colleen did as she said she would and the guard let us pass. He did not give me a second glance when we left, and a thought entered my mind that maybe the commonfolk didn’t much care for the monarchs who hid in their thick stone walls, so long as they kept the peace.

The idea doesn’t terrify me. Not today, when I planned to spend it living unmasked among the commonfolk.

Colleen stops outside the walls of the castle and points me down the path that led to the market. “There is a square in the center of the market,” she says. “It is the heart of the city, so all roads should lead there.”

“Thank you, Colleen.”

“Of course, m’lady. You can ask anything of me. All I ask in return is your safety,” she gives me another bow and watches me as I trek down the path of the hill. She continues looking out for me until I turn down another street and the walls of nearby buildings block me from her view.

* * *

The sun has already fully risen and the sky is bright blue by the time I arrive on a street lined with shops. People are beginning to mill around. There are those who wear cloaks like me, but most of them are in groups. They are likely to be travelers. I wonder briefly if I should take my cloak off too, but then I remember how the woman from last night had instantly guessed the make of my silk, and I decide to keep it on instead.

I have been to the Curious Shanty before, although only in passing. Mark Sloan had already shown it to me once years ago back when he was still a lordling being fostered in the Capital. He once told our coachman to bring us past the establishment, and he couldn’t stop boasting about it to both Addie and me, emphasizing that its owner was a woman from Plastics. He had always harbored a deep love for his Court, even back then.

As long as I make it to the square, I would know the way to the Shanty. Yet, I can’t help myself from being distracted by the lively ambiance of the city streets. All around me are merchants from all over the continent selling exotic items and unusual accessories. The air is full of aromas that drown my lungs, and there are various delicacies in every shop.

I pass by a stall with a man stirring golden soup made from the broth of Kardian beef, and I almost salivate at the scent. The next stall sold large fish native in the seas of Emergentia where Lord Hunt presided, and I had to keep myself from gagging at the smell. I see poached books from the libraries of Neura, spices from Orthos, fabrics from Addison’s Court of Matrona, and even fruits imported from Paedia. This is where I understand the essence of Genus. It was a melting pot of cultures, a convergence point. This is what makes the Capital the place for the High Court of Courts.

I see an old woman with a shock of white hair sitting cross-legged on the ground with a short table laid down with cards in front of her. A teller of fortune, I realize. My interest is instantly piqued. Fortune-telling was never something I believed in, but it was one of the things I have always wanted to try.

In three strides, I am standing in front of the crone, shadowing over her with my height. The crone smiles at me eerily and moves her bony hand over the table. “Have you come to see your fortune, young one?” When I nod, she surprises me by taking out a ball of glass I had never seen before. “The crystal ball better suits a beauty like you.”

She must have noticed my bored look at the cards because she seems pleased at my fascination with the new item. I watch, intrigued, as she flamboyantly waves her hands over the ball of glass. The crone’s eyes are closed in concentration, and I am impressed when sweat starts to build on her hairline.

I’ve never seen someone read my fortune in front of me before. In most royal Courts, the Lords and Councils would turn to the stars if they wanted their fates to be known. Orthos most especially. My Court would seek the words of astrologers to read the fate of future Kings and Queens. Whatever it was their divine eyes saw in the stars would be branded on the new ruler’s back in various designs; the Orthosi ritual of the coronation marks.

Suddenly, the old crone stops, her head jerks up, and her eyes fly open staring at the sky. I say nothing when she seems to bring herself back together and resettles on the ground. I wait for her, wondering what she would say to me.

“You…” the crone begins, and although I’ve said I did not believe in fortune-telling, I find myself hanging at her every word. “…will find the love of your life. First in darkness, then in light.”

I pause. I was too young to remember much of the future read to me during my coronation, but my prophecy was definitely read in epic poetry. It would be meaningless to compare that to the old crone’s prediction. 

It was as vague as I expected. The phrase could mean anything, as short as it was. Maybe the fortune was meant for me, but it could happen for anyone too. For all I know, the next person to pass the crone would receive the same telling. “Is there more?” I ask, but the crone has already hidden her ball of glass.

“If I could tell you more…” her four rotting teeth peek out from behind her smile. “…then I should have been an oracle for the kings. That is all I can give you, child. Now, it is you who shall give me something in return.”

Of course, a price. More and more, I am glad I decided to bring coins with me. Even vague words are sold here in Genus. The worth of her fortune should be equal to only one gold piece. I will give her more if I could figure out what her words meant.

I am about to give her the single coin when a hand reaches out and stops me. Instantly, I feel warm. This touch, it was _her_ touch. Soft and warm and yet so sure. Beside me was the blonde woman from last night, her body pressed on my side as she reached out to my hand.

Her hand closes over my own, and she pulls it towards her. All the while, she is smiling at me reassuringly while I am no doubt staring at her doe-eyed and stricken with sensation. Her eyes are brighter in daylight, and behind them, I can see silver specks. She is looking at me fondly, too fondly, that I feel myself leaning in.

But, then, she turns to the crone and, with her other hand, offers her ten copper pieces. “For your service, fortune teller. May you deliver more fortunes to those who seek it.”

The crone takes it, then the blonde woman leads me further into the market. Her hand is still holding my own, and I stumble on the pavement when she suddenly laces our fingers together. “Are you alright, Cassie?” she asks.

It takes me longer to remember that we didn’t know each other’s names. To her, I was ‘Cassie’, and to me, she was ‘Eleanor’. Although I know we had both agreed to do this, it discomfits me all the same. I ask her my own question instead, “Why did you pay for me?”

Her eyes twinkle in amusement, and I wonder if the white rabbit’s eyes had twinkled like this when it led the girl far away. “The commonfolk of Genus do not get paid gold pieces for spouting senseless words,” she tells me. “If you did not know, princess, the folks work days for copper, weeks for silver, and a year for one gold piece.”

I flush—at my careless mistake or at her nickname for me, I did not know—as we continued walking down the market, “I failed to consider that...”

“What did she tell you, anyway? You seemed to enjoy yourself before you were told of your fortune.”

I am about to point out that she spoke as if she’d been watching me the entire time, but my teasing words die on my tongue when I see her innocent curious gaze at me. “She spoke about my love and how I would find it in darkness and in light, or some such thing,” I answered her instead.

“Oh, as I expected. Fortune-tellers always predict a fortune of romance whenever the client is a woman as beautiful as you.” My cheeks grow warm at her words.

She grins at me in the daylight, and, in the light, I finally notice the small indentations on her cheeks. It is hollow and bewitching and so completely fitting of her endearing personality. Without thought, I bring a hand up to her face, and my thumb traces the curve of it. “You are beautiful.”

It is her turn to blush, and right then, I want to kiss her, as if a kiss could fix the rosy flush to her skin. But we are in the middle of a marketplace, and there are people milling around. This time, I am the one who leads her through the crowd, reinvigorated to get to the Shanty and finally spend the day alone with her.

“Wait,” she tells me. “Have you yet to break your fast?”

I look back at her with a slightly annoyed glance. “I do not mind skipping meals now and then.”

She looks at me disapprovingly. “It is ill-fitting to skip the first meal of the day,” she says. “Eat with me. I know a bakery in these streets.” She notices my hesitation and my eagerness to arrive at the Shanty, so she pulls on our entwined hands and tells me softly, “Think of it as me courting you. Only you and I and the food we have.”

“When you say it to me less like a mother and more like a lover…”, I smile and the rosy flush peeks from beneath her skin.

I allow her to lead me to a bakery, but the faster we go, the more I start to think that she was leading me somewhere out of her own hunger rather than mine. We stopped in a place I realized was close to the square, and a few stalls away from us was a bakery smelling of warm bread. It is a popular establishment this early in the day, and a crowd had already formed to buy from the baker with podgy arms. 

I estimate that we’d be better off finding another bakery than waiting for the crowd to disappear, but my companion is determined to buy from this one. “Wait here,” she tells me, and, for the first time since we’ve met today, she lets go of my hand and blends smoothly into the crowd. It frightens me how empty I feel without her warmth nearby.

Her small frame makes it difficult for me to see her among the masses, but my eye easily catches the soft color of her blonde hair. I watch over her away from the crowd, and I watch as she struggles her way to the front of the bakery. I’m surprised when she is instantly recognized by the woman assisting the baker.

The bakery woman’s demeanor relaxes at the sight of her, and they talk. They talk far longer than it should take to buy some bread. I stand on the sideline feeling all too uncomfortable as I watch her lean towards the baker woman, and I come undone when she _smiles_ at her _._

She smiles the way I had always seen her, bright and open. But, this one is different. This one is not a smile for me. I think back to the previous night when we met, at how easily she walked up to my space and held my heart as if she owned it. I wonder how many times she’d already done it, and I wonder with whom.

I realize I have never seen her talking to another before. I know that she is a stranger. I don’t even know her name. But to truly understand it, to witness the truth of it—that I do not know anything of her beyond the time we spent together—was a much more difficult endeavor to deal with.

I am suddenly filled with a need to know her, to claim her, so that her smiles—no matter who it was directed to—would always belong to me.

Eleanor returns to me looking much more satisfied than she had been when we arrived. Already, she was chewing happily on a roll of bread covered in white grain as fine as snow.

“Cassie!” She waves to me and offers me another roll covered in the same white powder, but I don’t take it.

Instead, I grab her shoulders and push her roughly against a stone wall hidden from the street. A breath escapes her when her back hits the wall. I take that opportunity to press my lips against hers, pushing into her mouth, my head full of desire, wanting to devour her. I taste sweetness on her lips, and I find out that the pastry she had been eating had been coated with fine sugar. Mysteriously, this encourages me to kiss her harder. My hand leaves her shoulders to hold her jaw, and I tilt her head to deepen our kiss, pressing myself against her harder.

When we pull apart, there are roses on her cheeks and a lustful glaze in her wide eyes. “Bread?” she offers absently, her mouth hanging open in shock.

“My name is Callie,” I quickly tell her. It was the nickname my sister gave me, and a name only my sister, Meredith, Mark and Addison called me. Everyone else knew me by ‘Calliope’. It is a name that is both secret and intimate. “Call me Callie.”

The stupid look in her eyes is replaced by clearer shock. I wonder if I overstepped, and the fear makes me look away from her. Nervous, I try to remove the hand that was holding her face, but she brings her own hand to keep me there. If it weren’t for the half-eaten pastry she was holding, I was almost sure she would lace our fingers together again.

She looks at me with solid blue eyes, and then she tells me her name. “I’m Arizona.”

My chest seemed to finally fit my beating heart, and my thoughts arranged themselves after years of being disorganized. For the first time, I breathe in air that travels through every inch of me, the sound of her name carried along with it. I am soothed. All was right with the world.

* * *

There is music playing in the square when we arrive. It is a thrilling rhythm, like running up a hill and the beat of your heart as it hammers when you reach the top. I look around for musicians, but instead I find a group of commonfolk standing by a fountain. They strum on the strings of worn wooden lutes, beat merrily against the ragged skin of percussion, and clapped along to the parts they didn’t play. An old man is playing a windpipe, tying the tunes together with a jolly melody. He skipped and danced along the side of a fountain, playing happily to the crowds.

All around me, commonfolk were dancing. They danced to form circles, split into groups, all the while laughing and twirling and singing along to a song I’d never heard before.

“Why are they dancing?” I ask Arizona.

_Arizona._ Her name flutters in my chest. The more I think it, the more I say it, the more it grows stronger into affection. I wager I would never tire of saying ‘Arizona’.

Arizona is already looking at me when I turn to her, like she had found me more mesmerizing than the folk who were dancing. “It is the end of a moon, the day of the sun,” she tells me, though she had to shout over the loud merriment happening around us. “The commonfolk dance to celebrate their blessings.”

“This is amazing,” I tell her. I want her to know that I am filled with a sense of wonder. I want her to know that I’ve never seen a gathering like this before. That the Courts have only ever taught me dances the nobles had to practice for months. That there is freedom in this place most people do not know I desired. I want her to know that although I am Queen, she made me more powerful by bringing me here. “I want to dance.”

“Then, dance with me, Callie,” my name passes easily through her lips.

In an instant, she is leading me to the square where the people continue to sing and laugh and dance. Music permeates through my skin, makes my heart beat faster, makes me smile so freely that I didn’t even realize I had been smiling until I start laughing. We spin and turn and the ends of our skirts flutter around us. At one time, Arizona reaches her hand for me, and I meet her with my own. We dance around each other, palm against palm, step for step.

Arizona’s blue eyes glint in the light, and her smile is so joyful and wide. She looks like she belongs here, in music and laughter and the sun shining brightly among happy folks. I doubt Arizona even realizes it, but she is singing along with the people.

_Come my love our world's would part_

_The gods will guide us across the dark_

_Come with me and be mine my love_

_Stay and break my heart_

_From the shores through the ancient mist_

_You bear the mark of my elven kiss_

_Clear the way, I will take you home_

_To eternal bliss_

Then, the music exhilarates even more. My unsteady feet follow after it, follow Arizona as she leads me through the song. She is laughing and singing and dancing, and I chase after her. I chase after the world she has shown me. And I do not look back.

* * *

We stumble together inside a room in the Curious Shanty. A single beam of sunlight enters through the only window, and it covers one side of Arizona’s face in blinding light. She looks at me expectantly, and I realize she is waiting for me to make the first move, giving me the chance to walk away if I wanted to. But, what I wanted was to stay.

I unclasp my cloak and let it fall on the floor. I set both the pouch of money and the sheathed dagger I brought on a table beside the bed. Arizona glances at the dagger but doesn’t say anything of it. Slowly, I walk to her, tugging my dress off my arms and letting it fall to the ground until my breasts are exposed, my abdomen tightens in the cool air, and the skin of my thighs rub against each other naked.

Time flies in her eyes as she watches me—from the bright blues of summer’s morning to the slow approach of night darkening the dusk. Without looking away, she removes the pouch of coins tied to her waist and sets it beside my belongings. I feel comforted that she didn’t bring any weapon with her, as if she trusted me not to harm her.

I reach for her shoulders, and she allows me to take off her dress. It is a reverent unveiling. Every inch of her skin is lightly freckled. Every part of her that I uncover, I discover constellations. When her dress pools on the floor, I look at her with vehemence. The single beam of sunlight still blinds a part of her face, but now, she looks more like a goddess than human.

I kiss her softly, tasting her and taking all the time in the world to do it. She smells of apples, sweet and tender. I trail my mouth from her lips to her cheeks. I kiss the path of her jawline until I reach her neck. I bury my nose on her shoulder, inhaling her sweet scent, relishing the softness of her hair, leaving kisses on the column of her neck.

“Callie…” She gasps when I sink my teeth on her shoulder. The sound is breathless and delicate, and it returns when my tongue sweeps over her skin. She wraps her arms around me and presses me closer to her. Every inch of our skin touches, my breasts press against hers, and my leg finds itself against her core.

I lean down to kiss her chest, and more of those breathy moans spill from her lips. Distantly, I noticed she was tracing repetitive patterns on my shoulders and down the top of my back. Then, with a start, I realize she had been tracing my coronation marks.

Does she know?

I look up at her with hesitant eyes, scared that she had found me out, that she would leave once she knew I was not just some wealthy merchant’s daughter from Orthos, but someone far worse. “Arizona…?”

But her eyes look at me the same. Undeterred, but curious at the marks on my back. “What are these?” she asks.

I almost cried with relief that she didn’t know. I had hoped that the Orthosi ritual of the coronation marks would be too foreign. What was known of our tradition was that the rulers of the Court were bestowed with black marks on their bodies. But, only the witnesses of the coronation knew what the marks looked like. Aria had been fascinated with them when we were children, but nobody had traced them with such reverence before. 

“A memory from a different time,” I tell her, and I hope she wouldn’t ask more of it.

“They are beautiful,” she looks at my marks with awe and innocent curiosity. All my past lovers saw my marks like they were paintings, but Arizona sees them as a part of me. Suddenly, she turns me around and pushes me until I am kneeling in the middle of the bed. I feel her follow behind me, feel her touch return to the marks on my skin. “May I?”

I did not know what it was she wanted to do, but I nod all the same. “Yes.”

And then, I gasp out when her soft lips replace her fingers on my back. She tastes my skin by following the lines of the marks. I’ve never seen my mark, but her tongue paints it with sensation until I can feel rather than see its graceful arcs and elegant designs. I have never felt more like a Queen than I did now as she worships me. 

Arizona pushes me further into the bed until I am kneeling on all fours. Now, it is her leg pressing against my core, and I whimper as I try to stop myself from rubbing against her. The path of my marks have led her to the crook of my neck, and I hear her inhale my scent deeply. “You smell of spices,” she whispers as she bites the lobe of my ear. “Your scent is too intoxicating.”

Her thigh presses further between my legs, and I bury my head on a pillow to mute the moans that come unbidden from my lips. I feel her hand snake between my legs, and I do not bother resisting the cry that tears from my throat when she cups me just as she bites on my neck.

Her fingers enter me and she begins thrusting, at first slowly as she soothes my bite mark with her tongue, and then faster when I start moaning louder. Her other arm circles around my waist and keeps me steady as she pumps harder inside me, her hips providing her with more force. I hear her grunting with effort from behind me, and I feel myself coming undone.

With a ragged breath, I cry out her name. A white shock bursts through me, and I come with her fucking me from behind. She doesn’t stop her thrusts until I fall limply on the bed. Moments later, Arizona’s hand slows down, and I feel her head rest on my back, her weight on top of my body. I reach behind for her and pull her ear closer to my lips, “Turn me around.”

She does, and lust comes back to me immediately at the sight of her dark eyes and sweat-matted forehead. This time, I am the one pushing her against the bed, core against core, and I return the favor.

* * *

We both fall asleep later in the day. I cannot remember how we fell to slumber, but I wake up to the feeling of her touch on my face, tracing the bone of my cheek, following the path of my nose, and fluttering lightly over my eyelashes. She touches my lips, once across the bottom, and another across the top.

When I open my eyes, she is supporting herself with one arm and looking at me carefully. Her blue eyes are trained on my lips, but, as if she’d known when I opened my eyes, she turns to look at me. “You’re awake,” she whispers quietly, intimately. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I smile sleepily. “I wish I had more days where you are the sight I wake up to.” 

I intended my words to be flirtatious, but they ring a truth that I’ve long desired. It is irrational and reckless, but I’ve fallen for Arizona.

“I wish for that too,” she says, and the fond smile that forms on her lips as she says it makes me think that she has fallen for me too.

She rests her palm against my cheek and leans toward me. “Callie, I have to tell you something.”

“You can tell me anything,” I say.

She looks deeply into my eyes, begging me not to look away. I mirror her and reach up to cup her face with my own hand in reassurance. She leans into my touch, taking strength from it. “Last night, when we met…” she begins. “…I only intended to take you to bed and take pleasure from you,” She closes her eyes as if admitting this embarrassed her. “But then, I saw you in the marketplace, and I saw a version of you in all the places I brought you to. I discovered new things about you, and every discovery sends me more and more in love with you.”

The word steals a breath from me. But I allow her to continue.

“In all honesty, I had planned to leave as you slept. I am not one for commitment, especially with the secrets I keep. But, I couldn’t leave, no matter how much I told myself it was the wrong thing to do, even if I knew nothing of you except that your name is ‘Callie’ and you enjoy dance and music and strange fortunes from crones on the side of the street. I do not want to part with you, Callie, and it terrifies me more than anything.”

I sit up and I kiss her lightly on her lips, drinking from her the strength she had found to tell me her inhibitions. She feels the same as I do, and this makes me decide to tell her my own.

When we part, my eyes are looking into her blue ones. “I have something to tell you too,” I say, wishing that my words wouldn’t fail me now. “It doesn’t matter what secrets you keep, because mine is greater and more terrible; I—”

And, yet, I cannot say it. _I am a Court Queen,_ the words are right on my tongue, but then, if I say them, then what would Arizona think of me? The crown is like a gilded prison. It scares too many and leaves me with too little. She would run away, I know it. Her bright blue eyes and happy smile would vanish from my sight forever. She would look at me as the rest of the people do, with polite respect and obligation.

But, the promise of our being together is greater. If she loved me, truly loved me, then the crown wouldn’t matter. She wouldn’t send me home, she would take me further away, and I would still follow.

“Promise me you will still look at me the same,” I ask of her.

“You don’t have to say anything, Callie, if you do not want—”

“But, I do.” I sit up and she sits with me. We are facing each other on the bed, naked but for the white sheets that covered our bodies. Bare, and without jewels or pearls or velvet and silk. But free. “Arizona,” her name gives me courage to continue. “My true name is Calliope of House Torres, firstborn of Carlos and Lucia, Queen of the Court of Orthos. It is a risk that I am telling you, but only because I am afraid you will never look at me the same again. If you could accept me, Arizona, then it would be the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. Greater than thrones and crowns. Greater than any kingdom or any Court. That is how much I have fallen for you, how much _I love you_.”

I want her to smile. I want her to say she loves me back. I would even accept it if she looked at me in surprise before bringing me into her arms. But, Arizona only stares at me stunned. The fear in her eyes clouds over her, and she quickly pulls away from me, distancing herself on the other side of the bed. Her reaction breaks my heart, shatters it into a thousand pieces. I try reaching out for her, but she flinches away.

“Is my being a Court Queen so terrible that your promise of love for me has been erased?” I ask her, and the pain in my voice brings tears to my eyes. A million emotions run through my mind, making my heart hurt, making my eyes water. I had been so wrong, in the most terrible way. She doesn’t love me, for if she did, then I wouldn’t be hurting as much as I did now.

“No, Callie, you don’t understand,” she answers. Only then did I realize that the fear in her eyes wasn’t fear of me, but fear at what she’d done. She moved away to protect me, to give me space. She looks at me, and her eyes are asking for forgiveness. “Callie, I am Arizona of Paedia.”

Her reaction starts to make sense, the coincidence of our meeting, the way she had seemed to come from the castle when she met me in the market, her familiarity with both the Grey’s Keep and the streets in the Capital. She didn’t even have to continue for me to know what was next.

_They say that after Daniel Robbins left, a Lady Robbins replaced his seat on the Paedian throne. Some say that she grew outside their Court with the late Lord Timothy’s mother._

“I am Lady Robbins.”

I would have laughed at the irony of it all, at how instantly I had figured out her identity just after I confessed my love. Meanwhile, there were signs all along, right from the very start. And I didn’t even care to question them, astounded as I was by her presence.

I do not remember moving, I do not remember much of anything, really. But one moment, we were facing each other with broken expressions on our faces, and the next, I had my dagger pressed against her throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, great thanks to MondlerFanKay in FFnet for proofreading this!
> 
> The song used in the dance scene is Tír Na Nóg by Celtic Woman.
> 
>  _next:_ They try to compromise, but Callie thinks that a dagger can never be resheathed once it has been drawn.


	3. iii. the lost heiress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I walked obediently towards the throne room where Princess Meredith and the Paedian party were waiting. My eyes are trained straight ahead, and the members of the Council follow in two columns behind me. I felt like a shackled prisoner being led to the guillotine with Arizona already sharpening her blade. A blade to my head, for my dagger against her throat.
> 
> \---
> 
> or: _Callie on the day of the hearing, desperately trying to pretend that the blonde Queen who abducted her people wasn't the same woman she flirted/fvcked/fought with the day before_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This goes from a short Arizona 3rd Person POV after the event of chapter 2, and back to the regular Callie 1st Person POV that picks up seconds after the ending of chapter 2. Also, I'm curious if you as readers also want a complete 1st Person Arizona POV chapter? 
> 
> Finally, friendly notice that I'm taking fictional liberties with this AU, so it isn't specifically based on a single historical period, more like a mix and mash to whichever period facts fit the story

Arizona had always been light-footed. She was small and a fairly good runner. She couldn’t jump over gates, but she knew how to smile at the guards and charm her way in. Inside, she blended in easily with the household staff. She’d spent most of her life living in the city of Genus, and the habits of the commonfolk clung to her like a second skin.

The night was late when her silent steps brought her to the West Wing of the Grey’s Keep. None of the guards had stopped her once she was inside the castle, dressed as she was like any other commonfolk who worked for the Greys. Walking on the corridor to her living quarters, she took off the apron she wore sneaking in, and ran her fingers through her hair to untangle the messy knot she did in haste.

Though she missed her father who had sworn himself to the Kingsguard, Arizona was half afraid he’d be the person waiting for her on the other side of the door. She didn’t know if she was relieved or nervous that, instead of her father, it was her sworn knight who was perching on a chair positioned by the door to her bedroom.

Alex was not wearing his armor. He is stubborn enough to refuse to wear armor if he doesn’t see the need for it. But he carries his sword on his hip, less because of the vows he had spoken, but more because the weapon was his comfort and protection. He doesn’t admonish Arizona for wearing clothes unbefitting of nobility, or for disappearing the entire day and returning late in the night. He couldn’t care less about the etiquettes of high society. He looks at her and is more envious than anything that his Lady had the chance to run off into the city.

“I keep telling you, you don’t have to stand guard by my door every night,” Arizona tells her insouciant knight.

“Stark hates me and the rest of the Court already disapproves of me for being commonfolk,” answers Alex. “It is either this or wearing your heavy armor. And I don’t appreciate my arms cut off just by the weight of the armor’s straps.”

Arizona only hums. The opinions of her Court, especially those of Lord Stark’s, mattered less and less to her each day. She had greater things worrying her mind, things that would finally come to a head in the hall of the High Court’s throne tomorrow. “Did my father come to visit?”

She isn’t surprised when Alex shakes his head, but the disappointment weighs heavily despite her expectation. “You could go see him yourself,” he says. “Go talk to him, or slap him for leaving you to rule a kingdom alone. He’s right here in the castle.” Again, the envious look returns to Alex’s eyes, but they vanish as soon as he blinks.

It is Arizona’s turn to shake her head. “He is in mourning. He will face me when he is ready.”

“He tossed you a kingdom on the brink of ruin. The least he could do is show his face now that you’re just a stroll away.” He lashes harshly, and though Arizona knew he would never say that about her father, and though she knew Alex had been thinking of another father as he said it, she had to berate him the same.

“Maybe he will come when I return to Genus without almost waging war in Timothy’s name,” she says sharply and Alex doesn’t rebuke her again. However, when Arizona fetches a smoking pipe, the belligerent knight regards his Lady disapprovingly. “Unhealthy habits done in consequential nights often lead to misfortune.”

“Contrarily, consequential nights are the best time for unhealthy habits,” Arizona stiffly replies, making the knight sigh in surrender and help his fidgeting charge light the pipe. 

“Where did you go?” Alex asks her as a small flame dances between them, and she is surprised at the unusual firmness in his voice. The surprise must have shown on her face because Alex crosses his brows and frowns at her. “Don’t look at me like that. Tomorrow is an important day, and I didn’t think you’d spend this last day away from Sofia.”

She can’t stop her eyes from glancing at the wood of her bedroom door, but she quickly looks away to answer Alex, blowing smoke to hide any of her tells. “I paid a visit to my mother’s old house in the city,” the lie slips easily through her lips, though she truly did plan to see her childhood home in Genus. Suddenly anxious to get away from Alex’s queries, she quickly draws from the pipe a final time, and the smoke gives her painful relief. After handing Alex the smoking pipe, Arizona walks to her bedroom door in quick steps, hoping that Alex wouldn’t ask more of her day.

But Alex suddenly stands from his seat and blocks her from the door. “So tell me why the corner of your jaw is swelling and how you received that cut on your throat.” Alex Karev did not care about high society, but he cared about his Court Queen enough that twin flames ignited in his eyes when he looked at Arizona once more. He narrows his eyes at the red line across her neck as if hoping that glaring at it could make it disappear.

She didn’t think the bruise would show so soon, but she should have known Alex would easily recognize bruises and cuts. Arizona brings a hand to hide the cut on her neck, but it only makes Alex’s narrowed eyes go from her throat to glare at her own. She tries to match Alex, glare for glare, but she doesn’t have any words she can say to him.

“Lady Robbins…” Alex implores for her to say anything, to give him a name he can cut down. His hand is already on the hilt of his sword, a nervous habit of his when he is looking for comfort.

She wants to tell him about the Orthosi woman who had secretly been the queen of sand. She wants to tell him that maybe her nights of sneaking away had finally caught up to her and that she’d fallen for the most unsuitable person for her in the whole continent. He’d laugh at her, she expects. He’d laugh at her blunder, at the peripatetic Robbins’s fall. But he had seen the cut on her throat, and it reminded him of the fragility of human life, inciting in him a rage from a life he had run away from.

If Arizona told him now, then the hearing tomorrow would end with Alex’s sword soaked with blood, or Alex’s blood soaking the floor. Both images made her shudder. So, she looks at him more coolly like she does her unrulier Paedian subjects, and she asks him to step aside. “I want to retire to bed, Alex. I want to be with the girl I almost went to war for.”

“Sofia was looking for you today. Since you keep acting like today might be your last with her, I thought you would stay in the castle instead of running off,” Alex tells her, still standing firmly on her path. He is an unusual sworn knight who didn’t immediately heed her words, but it only meant that he doesn’t follow Arizona blindly, and Arizona is sometimes glad for his resistance in this court of flowery fools.

But, not tonight. “I ran off because I did not want to act like today would be my last day with her,” she replies harshly, though she herself has been losing confidence in those words, especially with what she did in the Shanty. “Now, please, step away.”

Alex doesn’t look like he wants to give up, but he moves aside at her final command. “She’s already asleep in your chambers,” he adds before Arizona could close the door. His eyes aren’t trained on her anymore and he is looking away, but he plants his feet on the floor in front of her and says in a quieter voice, “We walked through the gardens this afternoon, and the Princess even joined us. But, she kept asking for you. Said she wanted to be there when you returned, so we stayed in your chambers until she fell asleep. I carried her to your bed, thought you might like to see her.”

Arizona smiles weakly, knowing that this was Alex begrudgingly trying to apologize. “Thank you, Alex.” He gives her a stiff bow just as she closes the door, and that would be the last time she would see her knight before the hour of the hearing.

The moon outside illuminates her chambers in silver light. There were no candles burning, but she didn’t need them to see the girl sleeping soundly on her bed. One of her hands is tucked under a pillow, and she is curled up on her side. When Arizona slips under the covers and beside the smaller body, a hand immediately reaches to clutch the cloth of her dress into a small fist, and Arizona can’t help but run her own thumb over the child’s soft skin.

Arizona didn’t know how to sleep tonight, knowing that she could quite possibly lose Sofia tomorrow. How will she plead her story when she’d already destroyed her chances before she could even begin? Her fingers unconsciously trace the cut on her throat, and among all other thoughts, it is thoughts of Calliope Torres that occupy her mind.

* * *

To hold a blade against a person’s neck is so strange.

I am sucked in a small pocket in the world where all that exists was the dagger, the erratic beating of my heart, and the ferocious rage growing inside me. The unknown force that had pushed me to reach for the dagger tells me to press even harder, to move just a little deeper and draw blood. I am tempted to stain pale skin with red. I am curious to know if bleeding blood could wash away this rage that I felt.

It was a sleek thing, but at its sleekness, I’ve found a power that made me invincible. It compensated for the fear I felt when I discovered that the person who was attacking my kingdom, was also sharing my bed. The dagger protected me. Its edge was my shield.

What awakens me from my entrancement is a sharp hiss as my blade pressed further against skin, finally drawing blood. I look up, and wide blue eyes meet me. I almost do not recognize them, different as they were from the sparkling blues I knew. They were petrified and pale and afraid, the color of thin cracking ice.

Arizona is still as stone, and she is holding her breath. Her muscles are tensed under me, and there is a real wild terror in her eyes that makes her look insignificant and feeble. She is terrified of her blood on the dagger, of me, the same way I’d been terrified of her. Only, I was the one holding a weapon that could end her life.

With a start, I throw the dagger away and it clatters as it hits the floor. I jump away from her, trying to find space, but I can’t think of anything. No thoughts cross my mind and I cannot seem to remember how to form words. I cannot even feel the floor beneath my bare feet. There was just emotion. A turbulent feeling that consumes my being.

All my anger and hurt and pain swirled into frustration. Despite my precautions and all my promises of going prepared, I was still so easy to capture. I am a weak Queen who had thought of hurting, of _killing_ , as soon as I felt vulnerable. Her life was in my hands, so close to me that it was tangible, so near me that I could feel her life’s pulse and see a white thread I can cut with a tiny push more.

I was raised with power, but that was too much power. That had been standing on the peak of the tallest mountain in the world and daring to reach for the sun to kill its flames. When I had that dagger on her throat, I was wearing the skin of someone I never should have stolen from, and it felt wrong. It felt like my mistake, and, again, I am frustrated.

I don’t know how long I had been frozen, but I hear my name being called out by a weak raspy voice. “Cal—lie…” Arizona is sitting on the bed naked, the blanket pooling around her waist. She had one hand on her throat and was moving her knees closer to her body, but she still managed to look at me with concern. I wonder how she had made her earlier fear disappear so easily. I wonder how she had the capacity to be concerned for me while I was still drowning in turmoil.

She was the Lady Robbins, I remember now. Arizona Robbins, it was a pretty name, and it fit her much more than ‘Eleanor’. I look at her and try to imagine her writing those letters from Paedia all those months ago. I try to imagine her speaking the command to abduct my people, plotting the schemes that had led me to declare war. Her hands that once touched my body, had held the quill that brought me to Genus. Her lips which I had kissed were the lips that spoke the words that started this war.

Her blonde head wore the Paedian crown, and I had almost cut it off.

Feeling returns to my fingers, and I curl my hand into a fist that I throw to her face. The knuckles of my hand found their mark on her right jaw, and my frustration was ebbed away by the satisfaction of landing a blow. Momentum causes me to fall on top of her, and we topple heavily on the bed. Searching once more for that satisfying outlet, I raise my fist again as she is pinned under me, but she manages to catch both my wrists with her hands, and I remain locked on top of her, grappling against her hold on me.

I want to rip down the image of the Lady Robbins in my mind and tear it to shreds. I want to hurt her as much as she’d hurt me, and I wonder if my body knew this before my mind did when it reached for the dagger earlier. I fight against her grip, hating this Lady Robbins, hating her war on my kingdom, hating that she’d played me so easily.

And, yet, the words that I said were not of hate.

“Why did you have to be her?” I cry surprisingly. Warm tears stop just on the corners of my eyes before they fall in fat drops onto Arizona’s face. “You were supposed to take me away. You were supposed to run away with me.” Though I am saying it, they shock me. I’ve never admitted to feeling trapped, yet here I am now, struggling against the enemy I had slept with and almost killed, pouring out secret after terrible secret. My eyes blur so much that I could no longer see the indentations on Arizona’s cheeks. “You’re a liar. I thought you’d come to set me free. I thought you were going to save me.”

I can’t stop crying. I want the tears to stop, but they refuse me. I want to rage at her, so I thrash with her hands securing my wrists. I want to stop crying, so I scream more, hoping that I would finally run out of things to say. But I don’t. I keep screaming. I keep calling her a liar. I keep hoping she would take it all back and take me away.

Arizona is silent beneath me but was it not for her body shaking, I would have thought the wetness streaking her cheeks were all mine. At one point, she grunts when I manage to land my knee heavily to her side, but she doesn’t say anything else and only continues her silent sobbing. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand her weeping like she’d been hurt as well. I can’t stand that she _was_ hurt as well. My pain felt more justified if she had been planning to hurt me. I needed her to be the villain in my story.

“Say something, damn it!” the words tear out from my throat in a raspy shout. “Stop crying! Fuck, say something!”

“I’m sorry,” Arizona whimpers. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, damn you. Say that you meant to hurt me. Say that this was your plan and I’d fallen for it,” my hands try to reach her cheeks and brush away her tears and pretend that that was enough to erase her sadness. “Don’t fucking cry. Don’t tell me this hurts you as much as it hurts me. Say that you hate me!”

“...Callie.” there it was again, that hesitation in her voice. That split-second decision to ignore that I wasn’t Callie. I was a Queen.

“My name is Calliope!” This breaks her more than anything. Her face crumbles and more tears flood her eyes. “I’m not your Callie. That Callie no longer exists.” I don’t know why I say those words when they hurt me as much as it seems to hurt her. I truly wanted to be hers and she mine, and yet, those two people who had roamed the market and danced in the square and made love inside a shabby city tavern were Cassie and Eleanor. We were not them. We were more. I was Calliope Torres of Orthos, and she was Arizona Robbins of Paedia. 

We were a pair of fools.

I pull my arms back and pull completely away from her. I dress hurriedly, desperately trying to get away from this exhausting futile attempt of trying to hate her, of trying to deny her. I needed to move and run to safety before this reactive energy between us hurts me any harder.

Arizona is still naked on the bed, wiping tears from her eyes and silent sobs still wracking her body. I see a red line across her throat, a shallow cut red with blood that I’d imprinted on her. The sight of it makes me nauseous. It was a spiteful reminder that I had almost erased Arizona Robbins from this world. The dagger’s edge on the floor is still lined with Arizona’s blood, and I take it with me as small repentance. 

While I collect my pouch beside the dagger’s sheath, I hear her calling for me in a desperate voice, “Calliope…” I’m shaken by the sound of my full name passing her lips. It sounded wrong, like she wasn’t supposed to say the name that belonged to my life as a noble. It fuels my anger, and I don’t bother to tie the pouch of coin anymore. I just wanted to leave.

“Calliope!” she called once more, and I wanted to cover my ears. “I meant it when I said I’d fallen for you. I meant every single word. Listen to me, please. Stay, please.“

But I was already out of the door. Her cries follow me as I walk away, their breaking anguished notes ringing through my ears as I take step after step away from her. Walking back to the castle, I think of her as I had after our first encounter. Only this time, my thoughts were confused, and I could never seem to finish a single one before they are cut off and replaced with more.

* * *

I hid the dagger on the bottom of the chest that I found this morning. This morning. Had everything that truly happened happen in only one day? I felt like I had lived through years, in joy and in pain. In and then further into a love that would hurt me.

I barely slept that night, but I did not bother calming myself by taking another midnight stroll. As soon as I entered my chambers, I refused to leave. I was highly aware that somewhere in this castle, Arizona was also laying on the bed made for Lady Robbins, likely thinking of the same thing. I wonder if she was planning to look for me, waiting for me in the painted chamber. I wonder if she’d found another woman to erase the fear she had felt when I put a dagger against her throat.

_I meant it when I said I’d fallen for you. I meant every single word._

They were beautiful words, and I wished so much that I could believe them. I wish I had the courage to step out of my chambers and hope to meet her somewhere in the darkened corridors of Grey’s Keep. But I’m too afraid of her, too angry at her, and too hurt that I would cry at the sight of her. So I remain locked inside my bedroom, trapped in these four walls with the thoughts in my head. And I barely sleep.

* * *

Orthosi fabrics are airy and light, but I could barely breathe in the dress I was wearing. I wore the gown prepared for the hearing, a dark red ensemble that wrapped up to my chest and flowed down behind my arms in twin columns. I’ve only seen this dress once when the royal dressmaker presented it to me, and I’ve refused to see it again, anxious for the day that I would wear it, for the day I would face another Court in hostility.

I’ve even forgotten that Colleen was brushing my hair until she stepped away from me. She did not braid my hair into an elaborate updo, choosing instead to let it flow freely down my back. Colleen came back, and with her was another maid carrying an ornate wooden box. From the mirror in front of me, I watched Colleen ceremoniously open the box and slowly take out the crown of Orthos, a ringlet of iron studded with sharp points of silver and tiny crystal drops falling at its edge.

She set it upon my brow, and I watched as I turned from a Court Queen to a Figure of War. My ensemble made me look powerful, a grand illusion crafted by the Council of Orthos to prove our kingdom was not one to be trifled with.

After my maids finished grooming me, I walked obediently towards the throne room where Princess Meredith and the Paedian party were waiting. My eyes are trained straight ahead, and the members of the Council follow in two columns behind me. I felt like a shackled prisoner being led to the guillotine with Arizona already sharpening her blade. A blade to my head, for my dagger against her throat.

The Eastern door to the throne room opens, and the cavernous chamber welcomes me and my entourage. Meredith sat on a seat beneath the throne, a reminder that she was yet to be crowned High Queen, and beside her were the same Kingsguards who accompanied her the day I arrived. Still, Daniel Robbins wasn’t there.

On the Northern wall of the throne room, just above the High Throne, was the black banner of Genus embroidered with a circle and four points like a compass, a symbol of balance and neutrality. Lining both sides of the throne room were the banners of the other seven kingdoms, but only two of them were rolled down and presented to the High Court: the red of Orthos and the rosy pink banner of Paedia with its three white birds. 

Under the Paedian banner were soldiers fully armored in alabaster plates, so different from Orthosi armor that prioritized mobility over protection. Even the Paedian Court was dressed differently from the Orthosi. Where our fashion was light and made to cool us from the sun, theirs was covered in frivolous laces and velvet silk.

My eyes search for blonde hair among the Court of Paedia, but none of them were Arizona. I wished to feel relieved that I didn’t have to see her so soon, instead, my exhaustion seemed to only worsen.

“Where is the monarch of Paedia?” demands one of my advisors without my behest. I tried not to squirm when all the eyes in the room were suddenly on my Court. Again, the advisor repeated his question, unfazed by the sudden attention. “We came here to parley with whoever sits on the Paedian throne. If you’ve seated a coward—“

I think of the Arizona I met yesterday, the woman who weaved through the streets with natural confidence, the person who’d dragged me into a dancing square and twirled me around in a sea of strangers. ‘Coward’ was the last word I’d describe her. I am happy to see one of the Paedian knights move to draw his sword at the slight to Arizona. The action could have easily started a war, but it comforted me to know that there were people in Paedia who cared for Arizona.

“If you have something to say, say it where I can reach you,” growled the knight, and I’m surprised by his heavy accent, one that is familiar among the commonfolk.

Another man with a ratty face berates the knight. He is wearing an elaborate velvet coat and an overly large wig. I did not need to know that he was one of Paedia’s royal advisors by the way he moved arrogantly. “Our monarch is in a conversation with the former Lord, Ser Daniel Robbins. I beseech you to wait. As it is widely known, family takes precedence in our Court.” He says it irately like he is also pissed at Arizona for making him wait.

I only now realize that nobody actually thought there was another Robbins. Hushed whispers begin to flit around on our side of the throne room, and I smile secretly at the thought that if they were astounded only to find out the new monarch was still a Robbins, then how much more when they finally see Arizona herself.

Finally, I hear a harried shout from behind the doors to the West of the throne room. “Lady Robbins, wait—“

The doors open, and light floods into the room from the wide windows of the corridors to the West Wing. Arizona appears as if she was materialized from sunlight, and the light blue of her attire only makes her look more heavenly. She enters slowly, taking in the entirety of the room in careful detail. Her eyes stop at me, and suddenly, we’re the only two people in the world. No Courts, no crowns, just two women and the story of yesterday.

I long to reach out to her. Again, freedom overwhelms my veins. Arizona looks like freedom, with how light she looked and with her natural brightness that was foreign to the Courts. Arizona is freedom, and she could take me away.

But my visions are shattered when alabaster knights come to fetch their Queen. Reality floods into my eyes, and Arizona is no longer Arizona. She was my mirror, a Court Queen of a pink banner with royal knights wielding broadswords and a Council with its own conceited members.

She has a grim look on her face similar to what I felt. It didn’t disappear when she looks at me a second time, and it remains fixed on her features as we formally began the proceedings of the hearing. It bothers me more than it should. She was my opposite in this High Court, and yet I want to ease the worry from her brows. _Tell me what you’re thinking, Arizona. Tell me your worries._

An advisor coughs from beside me, and I realized my whole Court was facing her. So were Meredith and her Kingsguard and everyone in the room. The monarch of Paedia was about to defend her decision of abducting Lady Leigh Chang, but I couldn’t care less anymore, not when she looked so tormented as she described her story and retold every decision she has made.

“We will return the people we’ve stolen, but we won’t give back Leigh Chang,” Arizona declares, and I forced myself to be angry at her. I had promised to my obligation as a Queen that I would return all my people to Orthos, and that promise created a fracture between us as we stood on opposite sides of the throne.

I conjure steadiness as I speak to her, “Lord Chang is old, but he is a powerful man. He will expect to see his daughter back when we return home, and he will demand war if Leigh is not with her people.” I finally face her, trying to summon the burst of strength I felt when I had taunted war weeks ago, but that strength had vanished ever since I looked into Arizona’s frightened eyes when I held a dagger against her. I now notice that Arizona’s dress had laces that extended over her neck, an attempt to hide the cut I gave her yesterday. Quickly, I look away from her, not wanting to be overwhelmed by our secret meeting.

She misses a beat before she answers me, although now I am looking more at Meredith than her, “Let me tell you about my brother, Timothy.”

My Council immediately reacts, “What does a dead man have to do—“ I stop them when the knight who drew his sword earlier reaches for it once more. I see Arizona do the same with her knight, and he obeys her wordlessly, though the knight’s glare remains on my Court.

“My mother wanted a simple life away from high society, and my father—an honorable man—allowed her to separate me from my brother when I was a child aged eight,” Arizona continues, and I can now better understand how she was so familiar with the city. She’d been one of the commonfolk until her brother died. Aria was right, she grew away from the Court but ultimately inherited it.

“But Timothy sent me letters. Ever since I was a child, he would send me letters. That was the only tether I had to my noble upbringing. They were full of his thoughts, of his secrets, of history lessons they teach children brought by nobility,” I can feel her eyes on me as she says this, willing me to remember the night of the painted chamber when she’d revealed to me its secrets. “They come rarely, but when they do, it’s like he is there, talking to me.”

“Years ago, he wrote that he joined a jousting competition in Orthos, and in that competition, he had fallen in love. They loved in secret, of course, for the woman was but a maid of House Chang. And their love only lasted for the season of the joust. The last letter Timothy had written to me was of a baby born from that Orthosi maid. The child was a common bastard, born out of wedlock, and born of a commonfolk mother. The Paedian Court would not claim it, and my Lord Father had ignored it.”

“But in his letter, Timothy told me he loved the child. He held the hunting season of that year in the name of that child, and he died in that same hunt. My Court thought his death forebode dark futures for the baby, so Paedia had never come to claim it. That was until my father stepped down from the throne and I had become its Queen. When I was crowned, I looked for Timothy’s heir, and there she was, claimed as a daughter of Lord Chang.”

“Lady Leigh is not a Chang. Her name isn’t even Leigh. My brother bestowed upon her the name Sofia Robbins. True heir of the Court of Paedia. I have come to claim her as my blood.”

I hardly thought any of it to be true. All around me, my advisors were in disbelief. Letters and lost heirs and the story of a dead Lord told by his estranged sister. None of it was believable.

And, that was the reason why we were here in the High Court.

Arizona knew how incredulous her story was. That was why she abducted my people, to gain the attention of the Court of Orthos and its Queen. She used my desperation to protect my kingdom so that I would accept a gathering in Genus, in the High Court, where she knew the Greys would address and judge her fairly. If she had immediately gone to us in Orthos, we would have turned her down. A Queen from the Commonfolk who came to claim a child of an Orthosi Lord. I myself would have turned her down.

But here, Meredith would assign scholars to examine her letters with their own letters from Timothy Robbins. She would demand to look upon the child and see its resemblance to both Daniel and Arizona. The Greys were bound to neutrality. Arizona had planned to bring me here, even though she did not expect me to fall for her to be a part of it.

“Why would Lord Chang claim a house maid’s illegitimate child?” asked an Orthosi advisor.

Arizona was clearly expecting the question, but her eyes flitted to the floor as she answered, “I don’t know...”, she sounded nervous. She sounded like she wanted to leave. Like this was the part of the hearing where she expected to lose her battles.

“Are you suggesting Lord Chang, one who has been Lord for many decades now, is prone to stealing bastard children?”

“No—yes—no, I don’t know,” I watch as she clenches her hands into fists and presses them to the fabric of her dress. She looks as scared as she did yesterday. Scared that she would return home defeated after all she had done.

“Do you have any evidence to suggest that—“

“Yes, my Lord,” Meredith intervenes smoothly, and I am grateful for her. She has a relaxed grin on her face and amusement in her eyes. Meredith once told me this was a pointless war. What is pointless about fighting for a lost family? Maybe it was pointless in that there had been greater wars waged for lesser reasons. “We’ve cross-examined the letters and seen the child. Ser Robbins can bring her here if you wish to see the child yourself.”

As if summoned, the doors open, and a young girl enters holding the hand of an old knight, Ser Daniel Robbins, I assume, from the deep familiar lines on his face. The child is clearly Orthosi, with her long dark hair and deep dark eyes. Her skin was lighter than most Orthosi children, but no one would think that she had royal Paedian blood.

Leigh, or Sofia, looks around the room and then smiles wide when she sees Arizona. That was when familiar indentations on her cheeks appeared, a pair similar to Arizona’s. I looked closer, and the child had the same round cheeks, the same jaw. The child runs to Arizona, and Arizona lifts her to her arms.

This was Arizona’s motivation. To find a memory of her brother who she had left when she was a child. And she’d found traces of it in being a Court Queen and in this child she’d found in Orthos. I can’t imagine any other reason why she left the life she had behind, why she risked angering another kingdom so early in her rule. I wonder why she seeks it as if it were some prize. I wonder how she could see her crown as an inheritance rather than a cage.

When my father had left me to rule Orthos, I had done it because of obligation. Since yesterday, I’ve begun to realize more and more that my reign was something I’ve grown to hate, something I longed to get away from. I was left to rule a Court as she had been, so why does she find happiness in it when I can’t?

What made her want something I hated? And why do I still care for her despite it? 

I imagine taking her away from nobility myself. I imagine playing the white rabbit in the story of a girl who did not want to fall down the rabbit hole. Arizona will follow me, I know she will, I know it is true that she loves me, today. But contempt will fester in her, she will come to despise me for taking her away, just as I despised the crown for locking me inside.

“Lady Torres, how do you bid?” Meredith asks me my demands for compromise. We were the insulted Court, and I do not imagine my people had willingly come to Paedia when the alabaster soldiers came to our lands. There was still the matter of Lord Chang and his false claim to Sofia Robbins. If we acknowledged the girl to be Arizona’s niece, then more mysteries would arise around House Chang.

It was easier to refuse her. To go back to Orthos with all of my people and leave this one-year queen to her own kingdom. Now that I’ve met her, I do not think she was one to wage war when refused twice, and we would be safe while Arizona grieved.

I picture myself taking the small child and walking away from this room. Arizona would break as she did yesterday, maybe this would hurt her even more. Her cries would follow me as we travel to Orthos. Her cries would haunt me in my sleep, and ring in my ears every time I interact with Paedia. She will grieve for the family she paid with a crown, while I mourned in the prison I ached to escape. We would both be miserable when only one of us had to be.

She could not grant me my wish, but at the very least I could give her this. “We acknowledge the child to be Lady Sofia, bastard daughter of Timothy Robbins and an heiress for the Court of Paedia,” I answer Meredith, and my Council trades whispers in surprise behind me.

I see Arizona sink down to her knees and bury her face on the little girl’s neck, no doubt crying happily. The crass knight steps behind her, sheltering her in her vulnerability. Daniel Robbins is also shedding tears. I wonder what he is thinking now that something he once denied has been won by the daughter he had separated with. The rest of her Court smile and clap happily, but some of them look at Arizona in mild displeasure, the ratty man from earlier frowning the most, clearly thinking it was unbefitting of a noble to cry openly in front of the High Court.

My own Court smiles at the return of our people to our land, although there are others who must be thinking that I’ve given them more work now that I accepted Sofia as a Robbins. Leigh Chang was now non-existent, and House Chang is under our scrutiny. We will return home to another coming of war.

As the gathering disperses, Arizona and I approach each other, a common formality in the Courts. Now that she is nearer, I could see the slight swelling on her jaw where I had hit her. The skin was likely bruised underneath the powder.

She is looking at me gratefully, but I could not bring myself to smile back at her despite all the illusions I managed to play earlier in the day. She was happy, so incredibly happy that I could see it in the flush of her skin and in the glow in her eyes. I envied her for what she had received. I envied that she didn’t need me to remain happy in her tomorrows, while I needed her in mine.

I ask, “Where will you go now?” _Will you leave your Court now that it has an heir?_

She glances back to Sofia who was with her knight, and that was all the answer I needed. “I will raise Sofia, so when the time comes, she will know how to be Queen.”

That was it, what Arizona and I both lacked. No one had raised us to be queens. The crown had dropped onto our heads and I was struggling to take it off while Arizona was trying to make it fit. I cannot steal Arizona from that child, not when I knew how important a proper teacher was in the Courts.

Arizona is smiling at me brightly, and it is a relief from all the crying she had done. She reaches for my hands and holds them gently, and this didn’t seem like a simple thank you anymore. She caresses the skin of the back of my hand softly and she leans toward me just as she did the night of our first kiss. Did she think that, now that she had solved her problems, we were finally free to be together?

I saw what she couldn’t. We were going in opposite directions, and, someday, the push and pull between us would destroy us. I cannot tell her that now, so she would have to realize that on her own.

The demise of our being together was inevitable. And, rather than wait for it to burst at the seams, I decide to end it just as it has begun, so I break free from her hold and deny her. The surprise in her eyes is clear, the love shattering into tiny fragments of pain. It hurts me how quickly she had fallen apart, so I look away. And, for the last time, I walked away from Arizona Robbins.

There were no broken cries as I left, not in this room full of people. But, later, alone, I shall cry and curse at the heavens for pulling me into their cosmic games. I will beg them to tell me that my destined love wasn’t the blonde with the deep marks on her smiles, that there was someone greater than her to come into my life. Tomorrow, I will try to forget Genus and the stories the city wrote for me. I will return to Orthos, to the story I never should have left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for taking longer to update. But I don't think I'll abandon this story, not when MondlerFanKay in FFNet keeps reminding me to continue hahaha, honestly, if you haven't checked out her works, then you should definitely go do it now!
> 
>  _next:_ While the people around her are wearing masks for frivolity, Callie wears a mask to hide her secret glances.

**Author's Note:**

> a big thanks for this goes to MondlerFanKay at FFnet. She gave me great advice and went through this even more than I did. This was unreadable the first time I sent her the draft, so I'm absolutely grateful for her help!!! Go check out her Calzona stories in FFnet! She's currently writing a multi-chap Mafia AU, and recently finished another amazing multi-chap post-custody battle Calzona, so if you're looking for a great read, then istg go see her stories here www.fanfiction.net/u/4451320/
> 
> \---
> 
>  _next:_ Callie spends the day in the city. Markets are roamed, songs are danced to, and secrets are revealed.


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